A recent Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Washington D.C. was powered by a blend of biofuel and traditional jet fuel. The biofuel made up one fifth of the mixture. It was created from the limbs and branches left-over after a forest was logged.

Michael Wolcott is the co-project director of the Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance, the group that made the biofuel blend.

Wolcott: “In the case of our fuel, we had a 70-80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions when compared to conventional petroleum fuel.”

According to Alaska Airlines, replacing twenty percent of its traditional fuel with this blend would save a lot of carbon pollution. If the switch were made just on its flights out of the Seattle airport, it would be like removing 30,000 cars from the road for a year.

But biofuel is currently more expensive than traditional jet fuel. Another challenge is finding enough tree waste to produce it. But Wolcott says demo flights like this one reflect a growing interest in low-carbon biofuels by the airline industry.

Wolcott: “So the airlines are interested in this fuel, they want to see it produced.”